Words of Wisdom by J. Org. Chem.

As we were preparing manuscripts a while ago, I spent quite some time reading through guidelines for authors for various journals. A small paragraph in JOC‘s instructions is pure gold and quite some food for thought. For reference, the full version can be retrieved here. This is an excerpt:

2.1.1 TitleThe title should accurately, clearly, and concisely identify the subject and emphasis of the reported work. The wording of the title is important for alerting current awareness and for information retrieval. Words should be chosen carefully to reflect the content and to function as indexing terms. Abbreviations should be avoided. Manuscript titles should not make claims of priority, originality, convenience, effectiveness, or value. For example, the words “concise”, “convenient”, “efficient”, “elegant”, “expedient”, “facile”, “first”, “new”, “novel”, “practical”, “simple”, “unique”, “unprecedented”, and “versatile” should not be used.

I fully agree with all of the above. I am sick and tired of quantum leaps, paradigm shifts and breakthrough zones and pristine corporate bullshit alike.

Let us scientists do science and let our results speak for us as they are. That is what I think. And apparently, the editors of JOC are on my side. Cut the crap!